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Nature as Medicine

Science’s Newest Miracle Drug Is Free

A grassroots movement of physicians are prescribing time outdoors as the best possible cure for a growing list of ailments. Can they really convince the health care industry that free medicine is the way of the future?

Adventure

Health

A man runs along strips of white paint on a road

Why Is YouTube Obsessed with Running Marathons on Zero Training?

Social media influencers have started a trend of posting videos of them running long distances without training. Here’s why the science says it’s probably not a great idea.   

Travel

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument on the Colorado Plateau

The 36 Best Trips in the U.S.

We’re celebrating the grandeur of America, from beautiful rivers, beaches, and mountains to incredible glamping outposts and wild places. Our travel experts are constantly on the road finding new adventures, and their ideas will jump-start your next unforgettable journey.

Food

Culture

Iridium

Yes, You Really Can Run a Business from the Backcountry

The latest technology from Iridium keeps execs and entrepreneurs online in the most remote parts of the world

Long Reads

Peter Kaestner illustration with birds flying around him

What It Takes to See 10,000 Bird Species

Peter Kaestner has traveled the world on an adventure-filled quest to become the first birder to hit 10,000. Ornithologist Jessie Williamson hitched a ride on a rollicking South American mission that involved land, sea, and (you guessed it) air.

Outside
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Gaia GPS

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Trailforks

Discover the best trails in the world.

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Outside TV

Unlock 600+ hours of ad-free films and series.

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Outside+

Unlock 15+ outdoor publications all in one app.

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Watch

DYI truck camper video

A Tour of a Renovated, DIY $500 Truck-Camper Rig

In this episode of the 101, Bryan Rogala tours cameraman Corey Leavitt’s new 2002 Dodge Ram 2500 build-out. Here's how Leavitt spent months gutting and renovating it.

Listen

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Tune Into Our Podcasts? Tell Us What You Think.

What kinds of stories do you want and not want from us? Fill out a short survey so we can create the shows you’re after.

Adventure

On the Hunt for America’s Forgotten Apples

Apples no one has ever tasted are still out in the wild. Dave Benscoter, a retired FBI agent, has spent a decade searching for these 100-year-old heirlooms.

On a hot October afternoon, Dave Benscoter leads me into a thicket of trees rising from a slope along the edge of Steptoe Butte in eastern Washington. We trudge until a mess of branches—some bent low, crooked like a finger, others soaring toward the sun like Icarus—obscure the outline of his five-foot-nine-inch frame, currently draped in a T-shirt bearing the image of a whitetail buck. He stops, taps me, and points up. Craning his neck, he fixes his bespectacled eyes on an object the size of a tennis ball.

In the late 1800s, local legend James “Cashup” Davis erected a hotel at the top of the butte, a popular destination until travelers figured that navigating a rickety wagon up 3,600 feet was a surefire way to join the departed. (After it closed, the abandoned hotel became an after-hours booze-soaked hangout.) But Cashup also planted several hundred apple trees in the ravines below. Hundreds still stand, scattered like patchwork between overgrown brush and tilled wheat fields.

Benscoter carries a long pole topped with a metal basket resembling the pocket of a lacrosse stick. Clasping it now with both hands, he maneuvers it between a tuft of green and orange leaves, then plucks an apple with the hue of a highlighter off a branch.

“There it is, my all-time favorite apple,” Benscoter says after hauling it in. “It looks like a butt.” A vertical indent creased it down the middle.

He chuckles, grasps the apple, wipes it against his shirt, bites into it, chews a few times, and promptly spits out a chunk of partially masticated fruit. Not ripe enough, it seems. For the next several hours we continue, plucking apples from aged trees, sampling them in the grass, hoping to find one that people haven’t tasted in decades.

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May/June 2023

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